Environmental Finance Center Network (EFCN)

Free EPA-funded network of university-based finance centers providing rate setting, asset management, capital planning, and financial sustainability training and consulting for water utilities and watershed organizations.

The Environmental Finance Center Network is a partnership of nine university-based centers (including UNC, Syracuse, Wichita State, and the University of Maryland) that provide free, EPA-funded technical assistance focused entirely on the financial side of running a water system or environmental nonprofit. Most water groups think 'finance' means accounting; EFCN's work is actually about strategy: how to set rates that recover full cost, how to build a credible asset management plan that opens doors to PENNVEST and SRF dollars, and how to structure a capital improvement program that survives political turnover.EFCN delivers free webinars, cohort-based training programs (often multi-week with workbook deliverables), and direct one-on-one consulting for systems and the nonprofits supporting them. They are especially valuable for small drinking water and wastewater systems that can't afford a CFO and for watershed nonprofits that need to model the long-term financial sustainability of a large restoration project portfolio.Their 'Smart Management for Small Water Systems' training is essentially a free finance MBA delivered in bite-sized sessions.